Have you all noticed that whenever our meditation begins,

The whole environment becomes quiet in anticipation.

Or is it just me?

Yes? No?

You see it is all quiet.

‘They’ all know meditation is happening!

So you are affecting ‘them’.

 

So quiet!

But of course, the moment you close your eyes and look within,

All the ‘monkeys’ start jumping inside.

So it is better to look at me than look inside!!

 

P: Giridharji, it is said that contemplation on the form of the Divine brings about liberation.

 

G: Sure. I suppose your job is to look to me and my job is to take you inside!

 

There is a force in you, which when awakened,

Opens you out to a greater understanding of what you truly are,

A greater and greater understanding of reality.

Ordinarily, a very small part of you is lived in life.

A very small part of your consciousness is expressed in life.

But when this force awakens,

It progressively opens you out to a greater living.

It opens you out to your own Divinity.

For this force to awaken you need to find the quietness, inner quietness.

It is not a struggle – but of course it is a practice.

It is easy to look out –

You are always looking out.

You have that practice.

You do not have the practice of looking within.

And if you ever shut your eyes, you sleep –

Because that too is your practice.

You only shut your eyes to sleep.

So these things need to be changed.

Through practice it is done.

 

And once you have opened out within,

You need not even shut your eyes.

You can be in, you can be out.

When you are out you are in,

When you are in you are out.

Then you can perceive the Infinite in all things.

You can experience the timeless, the immutable,

In all that which moves, in that which is time.

Then even in sound you can hear the silence.

Even in time you can see the timeless.

Then even in death you are immortal.

 

So to be quiet inside.

Really what we say is to feel for this quietness.

It is there, if you can just relax.

But then when you relax you fall asleep again.

So to relax and yet be aware.

And therefore we use the breathing – the breathing practice.

It may seem much labour to begin with,

But definitely it will help you.

You can have breaks in between.

 

When you start to become aware of this inner quietness,

You will be able to sit with yourself –

With yourself meaning not your mind.

Now you are with your mind, your feelings –

You are here, you are there –

But your Self is beyond all this,

Is behind all this,

Therefore we seek the quietness.

 

And that is why it is not so easy to sit with yourself,

You have to keep moving,

You move with the body,

You move with the mind, thoughts,

But your Self is behind all this –

And therefore the practice of meditation,

And therefore the need to awaken this force.

Otherwise you pass away from life without even being aware of it.

And yet you go about in the world –

With no understanding of yourself and reality,

Because everyone in the world is doing the same.

But then you may meet a rare somebody who knows more,

And who may start you thinking……..

Otherwise most times you think in fixed patterns,

And that gives you a sense of ‘I’.

 

Everybody is living in this way and so that is the norm.

You don’t know anything different.

And in a way you also don’t feel the need,

Unless somebody comes by and makes you think –

That there is much more to yourself,

Than what you now consider yourself to be.

And that is what meditation is all about.

It’s about ‘more’ of yourself –

Than what you have accepted unconsciously without much enquiring.

That is because everybody is in the same way around you.

The whole world is living in this way and so are you.

Meditation means to discover, uncover, recover the full range of your consciousness –

The full range of your consciousness, the full range of your existence.

It is a process just as life is a process and a journey.

It is not just taking things for granted, not at all.

It is not living unconsciously but consciously.

Without it you live a very limited life.

 

In the world you learn about your body,

You learn about your mind,

Not much about your consciousness.

The world doesn’t know how,

For ordinarily you either identify with the body or with the mind.

So meditation means to know yourself as consciousness –

Conscious existence with mind and body as its instrument,

And to be able to live from there, consciously.

 

So meditation is to make you conscious.

Meditation makes you objective with your own mind,

With your own feelings, your desires, your body –

Not helplessly unconsciously identified with it.

Then you get a different perspective of life.

Meditation is to be in harmony with yourself,

Unlike – the body in one place, mind elsewhere, spirit nowhere.

But it is fine in the world to live like that because everybody is living like that.

They know not any other way.

So the human society is also formulated, structured in that way.

If people live from enlightenment and you had a society like that,

The world would be a different place.

Then you would see that the pursuits and activities –

That you give so much importance to now are really meaningless.

For you would see your life will one day end in death – graveyard.

 

Everything that you did,

Everything that you possessed is left behind.

For example, your body in death, what happens to it?

They bury it or they burn it so it doesn’t rot and smell.

And you took so much care of it in life,

Spend so much time for it!

So in the end you are one big Zero.

Before the end maybe some pleasures –

Some things you may have created –

Relationships you may have made, moved away from,

So it gives you a sense that you live –

But in the end… Zero.

 

So those who discovered meditation –

They must have had these thoughts –

They must have looked into life and saw the end of it.

They wanted to know and have more.

Surely this could not be the end of beautiful life.

Life cannot end in death –

Life cannot end into nothingness.

So they inquired, looked into themselves.

They were the pioneers.

They found the real Self, the Truth, behind, beyond the body,

Behind, beyond the mind,

And discovered that ordinarily what they considered themselves before –

Body and mind alone –

They were but mere instruments and not themselves.

They discovered the whole range of their being and consciousness.

 

I hope you like to hear stories.

As children I suppose you all have heard stories,

From your parents, uncles, aunts – elders.

So I am telling you a story too,

A story which they never told you,

A story they did not know.

It is a story about yourself –

It is an universal story and yet specific to each and everyone,

And to all life.

It is everybody’s story,

For it is the story of existence – the story of life.

 

You may be from the West; you may be from the East,

You may be from the North; you may be from the South –

These are mere locations,

As life may be born in the North but end up living in the South –

This is mere geography,

For life is life, whether in the North, South, East or West –

It is the same life.

You may be men, you may be women, it is the same life.

So the story is about life because we are all life, each and everyone.

 

You have the practice of looking out,

You don’t have the practice of looking in,

And yet you live for yourself,

That is the paradox.

And yet, you always begin life –

You always begin your actions, and your interactions,

With yourself as the ‘premise’.

“I” is always first.

Have you ever enquired – inquired, what is this I?

Who is this I?

What is this I?

It would change your perspective of life,

Rather it would change your way of living.

Ordinarily, there is only outer life –

Not much inner life.

So life is lopsided – always out –

Not much inside –

Always on the surface.

Therefore when you look out –

You do not see the inner reality in the outside.

You never experience the timeless.

When you look at a tree – you see only the form.

And if you were to make a house,

You see it only as wood or whatever.

You never see it as spirit –

Being in consciousness.

 

So also with each other,

And even so with yourself.

If you do with yourself,

You would with all else.

Therefore meditation –

Therefore changing the perspective as to how you look at yourself,

And therefore all life.

Not to be able to do so is ignorance –

Then you deny yourself a greater living,

A greater freedom and a greater joy.

The whole world would change –

The whole world would change for you and you for the world.

 

So the importance of meditation –

Importance of you –

It is all about you, the story is about you, your life.

Therefore what we say is that –

While you pursue the outside,

Do not forget to pursue the inside.

While you pursue life outside,

Don’t ignore the life inside.

 

The way the society is now –

The way the world is –

It is all the outside.

It is all about the outside with not much in the inside.

So it leaves a big part of you –

The most important part of you undiscovered.

 

And in the end you go to the graveyard,

And they bury you six feet deep,

Or they burn you and turn you into ashes,

So that you don’t become a ‘health and smell’ problem afterwards for the others.

Even relatives, friends, the close ones, boyfriends, girlfriends,

They would rather have you as ash and earth,

Than the very body they embraced with so much vigour and excitement,

And got so much pleasure from –

They would not want to touch.

 

It already starts to happen when you start to grow lines on your face,

And your hair starts to grey and thin,

And you start to loose them.

You also start to loose your attractiveness and importance.

It is like the fruits in the supermarkets –

So they artificially make it look nice and attractive,

And then you buy them by the dozen.

But if the fruits are withered or not so nice looking –

Usually organic fruits are like that,

You are not attracted to them,

And no one wants them,

And therefore don’t want to buy.

For people live artificial lives,

And in their ignorance seek only the artificial.

 

So when you are a dead body,

The only place they will send you to is a graveyard,

For no one wants you in that condition.

Therefore take to seeking the Truth about yourself –

Take to a life of Meditation.

 

Panchmadhi

20 February 2005